Today marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson declaring the "war on poverty." What progress do we have to show today? We have two parties with strong views and ideas about how to grow the middle class. But whose will work?

At 6:30pm ET, we debate who is doing more to lift the economy with Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) and Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) with hosts S.E. Cupp and Stephanie Cutter.

We want you to weigh in: Do you think raising the minimum wage would reduce poverty?

soundoff(38 Responses)

As a white middle aged upper middle class male, I see a lot of 50 plus whites out of work. Here in Wash DC today I was at a large Shopping wholesale chain.

No one wanted to wait on me to return an item.
While I was in check out line with a bill over $100 purchase , the cashier decided to go on break when I was the only one in line. Her supervisors told her to complete my transaction before going on break as I was the only one in line.

Thinking this was odd , I looked to see if there was another line. There were 16 cashier stations open with only only one person in line.

Did I mention there way no diversify among the this
16 person staff ?

As pleasent as one could be there was a lack of courtesy towards me because of my race.

Yet were is the outrage from white middle class out of workers who were not hired as there are no white diversity federal hiring requirements!

The irony is, I regretfully voted for this president not knowing we were handing over control of our nation to any one preffered race of people.

What is the one thing you posses equally than that of Warren Buffet, Bill Gate and any famous movie star and that is time? As a quote says, I was concentrating so much on the doors that closed. I failed to see the doors that have opened. When you are unemployed, you concentrate on the closed doors to job opportunities, you fail to see the door of more time made available by unemployment. Thus you now are rich when it comes to time. The question is how do you spend it.
There is research that says exercise, especially if done outdoors, results in all kinds of benefits. It makes you smarter, it reduces depression, you lose weight and you are more creative. So if you are looking for a job and are depressed. Go to the nearest trail to walk or snowshoe or go to the nearest gym. You now have the time to get yourself into shape or to finally quit smoking, so spend it with such activities.
I believe we are all born with God given talents, though many people will go through life ever to discover these. That homeless person or your next-door neighbor will all have that gift. In order for people to find those gifts is that it is going to take trial and errors and additional education. Fortunately the unemployed are rich with time. So please spend the time on education or job training.
Do not give up hope! Hope never abandons you. You abandon it. As it is given the sun shall rise everyday. So will our employment rate as well. Please get that exercise until your employment needs are met. Please discover your talents by trial and error and through additional education while you have extra time of being unemployed.
A new dawn is about to shine brightly on the US. Just give it faith. God works in mysterious ways and he is always thinking about your well being. As they say patience is a virtue. Just give it time and efforts. Your fortunes are just around the corner as a result.

Middle class is such an ambiguous term
From: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/04/14/middle-class-hard-define/2080565/

"Economists often start with the middle 20% of the country – people earning between $39,000 and $63,000 a year – and work their way out. Some then stretch the definition to include the middle 60%, which has an income range of $20,600 to $102,000. Because that's a wide range, other factors come into play: home ownership, savings, a college education."

I would say those on the lower end of the spectrum are dangerously close to being "poor" since the poverty line for a family of three is just shy of $20K.

In the entire history of the United States, from the very beginning it was, has always been and will continue to be Middle America that has keep this country moving forward. WHY are so many repuks acting as if this FACT is not true?

The GOP Solution: Turn all the Old, Sick, Poor, Non-white, Non-christian, Female, and Gay people into slaves. The whip them until they are Young, Healthy, Rich, White, Christian, Male, and Straight. Or until they are dead. Then turn them into Soylent Green to feed the military during the next "unfunded/off-the-books" war. And don't forget the GOP all time favorite..........TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH!!!!!!!!!!!

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong" – HL Mencken.
Dems will tell us that raising the minimum wage will fix everything. Reps will tell us that lowering taxes will fix everything. Both are very clear, simple....and WRONG. Americans need to wake up and start realizing that our problems began at least 30 years ago and there are NO easy fixes. We need to start devoting MASSIVE resources to education and start pumping out as many doctors, lawyers, bankers, scientists, engineers, mathematicians, artists, programmers, researchers, teachers, and entrepreneurs as possible. If we raise education levels we raise skill levels. Higher skill levels mean higher wages. Make this a nation full of highly educated and trained workers in the high tech, high pay jobs of the future and then no one will care about minimum wage OR the jobs of the past (like manufacturing cars, computers, and clothes). We still have the best higher education on Earth, a huge pool of capital for investment, and unparalleled research and development capabilities. Let's start EDUCATING our PEOPLE to utilize these! If we would quit artificially dividing ourselves into useless parties then we could get back to the REAL great American past-time....making money!

We need to have a balance of both. But unfortunately the outsourcing is not just limited to unskilled and skilled blue-collar manufacturing jobs either. It's also impacting white-collar jobs like, plant managers, engineers, IT jobs, purchasing, customer service, bankers, scientists, engineers, programmers, researchers, teachers(via online schools), etc........... being outsourced to India, China................. When will it stop?

Nowadays it's obviously not about being either lazy or uneducated as many try to profess, but about wages, expenses and regulations that are not even remotely close to the wages, expenses and regulations in our country.

Just the other day a friend that works in the IT department of a major paint company found out that 90% of their IT department in the USA is being laid off and will be replaced by IT techs in India. He has until February and he's gone, but not until he helps train and transition the job to those that are replacing him.

This summer I learned from a highly educated engineer that their company had recently displaced 100 of their 105 engineers here in the USA by replacing them with engineers in India. He was fortunate enough to be one of the 5 out 105 American engineers that they kept.

It's all happened because, over the last 25-years, our government has allowed our country's industries to get sucked out to China, India, Mexico, etc and allowed illegal aliens and H-1B foreigners to come into our country and take away tax-paying Americans jobs and drive down prices and wages.

That's where our government leaders have to step up and put some sensible measures and incentives in place to keep jobs here in the USA or the real economy and infrastructure of the country we love will be destroyed along with the future of the American people.

Bringing manufacturing back to the US not only gives jobs to the US citizens who would be working in those manufacturing facilities, but to the people that would be working in the businesses that would spring up all around them. This should also include the safe harvesting, production and distribution of our own natural energy here in the USA, rather than paying for fuel from countries where they hate us. Let's keep that money and those jobs here in the US.

Even "60 Minutes" got into the act with their BS show about US manufacturing companies not being able to find enough qualified help. It doesn't help us, that since manufacturing has been declining for decades, that our children are being pushed towards liberal arts degrees rather than technical training which could have led to jobs, had we not been going down the ever increasing path of "Out-Sourcing".

And for those that will say that many jobs are being replaced by robotics and automation, you still need people to maintain and service the automated equipment, warehouse personnel, truck drivers to deliver the products, purchasing people to buy the materials, managers, office staff, etc.

Also, let's manufacture the automated equipment and develop the software to be used for this automated manufacturing, etc. This not only gives jobs to the US citizens who would be working in those manufacturing facilities, but to the people that would be working in the businesses that would spring up all around them.

Many American jobs have been replaced by automation, but many more have been replaced by "out-sourcing", H-1B workers and non-income-tax-paying illegal aliens here in the USA.

The ONLY REAL FIX for our great country is to RAISE REVENUE, by Bringing Back Businesses and Jobs to TAX-PAYING AMERICAN CITIZENS.

The American people will need good jobs with health-care benefits in order to be able to pay for the services of those educated doctors, lawyers, college professors, etc. – It can't all be chiefs and no Indians. There is an equally important place for both of them in America.

I Agree 100% – We'd really all be better off by just cutting through all the my team vs your team name calling nonsense and really focus on America and improving the future of the American people.

I also agree – That once they're elected, our leaders should be working together for the good of the our country and our citizens by using combinations of the best ideas from both sides versus just trying to make the other side look bad so they lose the next election. – How's that been working?

It's not too late – But it will be soon – If our leaders don't start changing their ways.

The American people will need good jobs with health-care benefits in order to be able to pay for the services of those educated doctors, lawyers, college professors, etc. – It can't all be chiefs and no Indians. There is an equally important place for both of them in America.

January 9, 2014 at 11:32 am |

thinkthinkaboutit

Is S.E Cupp a porn star on the side? I just can't tell with a Conservative wearing such Conservative clothes.

Can any of of them help America to bounce back after all the stupid traitorous nonsense from the last 2-3 decades?

Unfortunately most of our politicians are joke – Only it's not so funny, because over the past several decades, all they've been doing is screwing the American people, by stalling, spending, removing protections and allowing illegal aliens to continue to pour in and American jobs and industry to pour out, and all while collecting their American tax-payer funded pay checks, benefits and whatever else they get on the side from their various lobbyist friends.

It seems to me that over the last 2-3 decades that both parties were always able to distract and polarize voters with insignificant peripheral BS, which get's most voters so caught up in the BS that they lose sight of the bigger picture.

We'd really all be better off by just cutting through the BS and all the my team vs your team name calling nonsense and really focus on America and improving the future of the American people.

Once they're elected, our leaders should be working together for the good of the our country and our citizens by using combinations of the best ideas from both sides versus just trying to make the other side look bad so they lose the next election. – How's that been working?

All the nonsense just allows the puppet-masters to continue to do what's best for them at the expense of the American people while we're polarized and distracted.

But, let's face it – Neither party is actually running our country – Powerful puppet-masters play both sides to make sure that they get what they want. Unfortunately what they want is not usually in the best interest of the majority of the American people. (American citizens)

Foreign Lobbyists here in the US promote sending US jobs to countries like China, where they work for slave wages, no benefits, no OSHA safety standards or no real environment regulations. It also doesn't help us compete when these company's factories are subsidized by China's communist government. Just check out the current Chinese extreme pollution issues – We all live in the same world, but not every country plays by the same rules.

The so called "Global Market Place" is not a level playing field. Companies may have made higher profits by "out sourcing", but they've been putting middle class Americans who are a good part of the world's customer base out of work.

The American people need American leaders who will start putting some sensible measures in place to stem the tide or this is going to continue to have a devastating effect on the United States of America and the American people.

Aren't there at least a handful of these powerful puppet-masters that are fellow Americans with enough of a conscience, guts and loyalty to America and their fellow Americans to start trying to turn this trend around?

If there aren't any, we're screwed.

The bottom line is that "Our Government" has to protect domestic industry and the jobs that those industries provide. If they do that, the rest will take care of itself.

The so called "Global Market Place" is not a level playing field. Companies may have made higher profits by "outsourcing", but they've been putting middle class Americans who are a good part of the world's customer base out of work.

Bringing manufacturing back to the US not only gives jobs to the US citizens who would be working in those manufacturing facilities, but to the people that would be working in the businesses that would spring up all around them. This should also include the safe harvesting, production and distribution of our own natural energy here in the USA, rather than paying for fuel from countries where they hate us. Let's keep that money and those jobs here in the US.

The ONLY REAL FIX for our great country is to RAISE REVENUE, by Bringing Back Businesses and Jobs to TAX-PAYING AMERICAN CITIZENS.

The lack of businesses and good jobs in the USA is what's really going to rob us, our children, grand children and great grand children of the potential of a prosperous or even decent future.

It's all happened because, over the last 25-years, our government has allowed our country's industries to get sucked out to China, India, Mexico, etc and allowed illegal aliens and H-1B foreigners to come into our country and take away tax-paying Americans jobs and drive down prices and wages.

That's where our government leaders have to step up and put some sensible measures and incentives in place to keep jobs here in the USA or the real economy and infrastructure of the country we love will be destroyed along with the future of the American people.

Nowadays it's obviously not about being either lazy or uneducated as many try to profess, but about wages, expenses and regulations that are not even remotely close to the wages, expenses and regulations in our country.

Regardless of what the Free-Traitors keep trying to sell us, we can see what's real. The American People need to just trust their own instincts, common sense and what they've seen actually going on all around them versus all of the nonsense that the free-traitors are still trying to sell us.

While our politicians have been bickering for years like idiotic fools, China has been crushing the USA in an economic war that we don't even know we're in and without even firing a shot.

Bringing manufacturing back home to the USA is going to end up being not only a key to restoring our economy, but to maintaining our national security as well.

* Chinese firms and state agencies have been implicated in a host of hacking attacks, on targets ranging from leading industrial and technology firms, to the Pentagon and other US government agencies, to the New York Times, Coca-Cola and numerous other companies and industries.

* Oct 2012: The U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said U.S. telecommunications operators should not be allowed do business with China's top network equipment makers because potential Chinese state influence on the companies poses a security threat.

* Also most counterfeit goods are produced and manufactured in China, making it the counterfeit capital of the world. In fact, the counterfeiting industry accounts for 8% of China's GDP.

* Foreign Lobbyists here in the US promote sending US jobs to countries like China, where they work for slave wages, no benefits, no OSHA safety standards or no real environment regulations. It also doesn't help us compete when these company's factories are subsidized by China's communist government. Just check out the current Chinese extreme pollution issues – We all live in the same world, but not every country plays by the same rules.

The so called "Global Market Place" is not a level playing field. Companies may have made higher profits by "out sourcing", but they've been putting middle class Americans who are a good part of the world's customer base out of work.

Bringing manufacturing back to the US not only gives jobs to the US citizens who would be working in those manufacturing facilities, but to the people that would be working in the businesses that would spring up all around them. This should also include the safe harvesting, production and distribution of our own natural energy here in the USA, rather than paying for fuel from countries where they hate us. Let's keep that money and those jobs here in the US.

Our leaders need to start remembering that they are elected by the Citizens of the United States of America to represent the interests of those citizens and the country itself. – They are NOT elected by or to represent the Global Market Place, Lobbyist or Foreign citizens!

The outsourcing is not just limited to unskilled and skilled blue-collar manufacturing jobs either. It's also impacting white-collar jobs like, plant managers, engineers, IT jobs, purchasing, customer service, etc........... being outsourced to India, China................. When will it stop?

Foreigners will be coming here and buying our houses after we all foreclose. They'll also be taking over our government too, after it defaults from lack income tax revenue, due to businesses in the USA shutting down and or US jobs being outsourced and everyone being out of work.

Just the other day a friend that works in the IT department of a major paint company found out that 90% of their IT department in the USA is being laid off and will be replaced by IT techs in India. He has until February and he's gone, but not until he helps train and transition the job to those that are replacing him.

This summer I learned from a highly educated engineer that their company had recently displaced 100 of their 105 engineers here in the USA by replacing them with engineers in India. He was fortunate enough to be one of the 5 out 105 American engineers that they kept.

Our leaders better wake up and put some sensible measures in to stem the tide or this is going continue to have a devastating effect on our country and the our citizens.

This is eventually going to effect even the few idiotic Americans who are still championing outsourcing.

I'm sure that there cheaper qualified Wall-Streeters and CEOs in China, India, etc............. as well.

Coming to a town near you – Correction going to another country far-far-away from you.

Please come up with a better strategy that'll work out better for all Americans.

January 9, 2014 at 8:42 am |

Bob

I would like to 2nd everything you say. But I would like to emphasize that none of this would be possible without the aiding and abetting of the mainstream media, present company (CNN) *included*.

On the issue of " and H-1B foreigners to come into our country and take away tax-paying Americans jobs and drive down prices and wage", mainstream media has run a propaganda campaign of endless lies that would make the USSR's 'Pravda' blush.

On the political coverage in general, nothing is more indicative of the disinformation that the prevalence of Mark Shields and David Brooks, the twin D-bags puppets putting up the false frame of issues on seemingly every network every political season. Hard to imagine that North Korea has a narrower filter of political opinion

Very – True – But at least they're giving a voice on here, which is better than what's happening over at Fox, AOL and ABC where there is still a lot of censorship.

Perot said it back in 1992 "Jobs getting sucked out of the country" – Many people saw it back then, but unfortunately too many people bought into the spin of "BS" that we were being sold. Seems that both parties were always able to distract and polarize voters with insignificant peripheral issues like gay marriage and abortion, which got most voters so caught up in the BS that they lost sight of the bigger picture.

This was something that most of us already knew back at that time, because it was just common sense!

The people with all of the excuses as to why we can't, shouldn't or aren't willing to manufacture products here in the US are the same people who have provided us with the thinking that's gotten us into this mess in the first place.

Too bad we'll never see these types of articles in the mainstream media.

It's appears that the foreign interests are influencing our media as well, just watch the ABC Nightline special on Apple's iPhone and iPad products being made in China that ends with the dramatic biased comment "That you can be the nation that lines up to make these products or the nation the lines up to buy them, but it's impossible to be both". What BS propaganda! ABC has direct ties to Apple and Foxconn. It also doesn't help us compete when these company's factories are subsidized by China's communist government.

Even "60 Minutes" got into the act with their BS show about US manufacturing companies not being able to find enough qualified help. It doesn't help us, that since manufacturing has been declining for decades, that our children are being pushed towards liberal arts degrees rather than technical training which could have led to jobs, had we not been going down the ever increasing path of "Out-Sourcing".

Foreign Lobbyists here in the US promote sending US jobs to countries like China, where they work for slave wages, no benefits, no OSHA safety standards or no real environment regulations. It also doesn't help us compete when these company's factories are subsidized by China's communist government. Just check out the current Chinese extreme pollution issues – We all live in the same world, but not every country plays by the same rules.

On the US Department of Commerce's US Census Bureau website there's a graphic showing how our trade imbalance has gotten progressively worse over the entire period from 1989 to the present and how it's really accelerated at an increasely greater rate each year since 1999. We can thank our leaders and the WTO for that.

See for yourself: www(dot)census(dot)gov(slash)foreign-trade(slash)balance(slash)c0004(dot)html

But the news that Apple CEO Tim Cook has revealed that one of the existing Mac lines will be manufactured exclusively in the United States next year is at least a step in the right direction.

And for those that will say that many jobs are being replaced by robotics and automation, you still need people to maintain and service the automated equipment, warehouse personnel, truck drivers to deliver the products, purchasing people to buy the materials, managers, office staff, etc.

Also, let's manufacture the automated equipment and develop the software to be used for this automated manufacturing, etc. This not only gives jobs to the US citizens who would be working in those manufacturing facilities, but to the people that would be working in the businesses that would spring up all around them.

Many American jobs have been replaced by automation, but many more have been replaced by "out-sourcing", H-1B workers and non-income-tax-paying illegal aliens here in the USA.

The ONLY REAL FIX for our great country is to RAISE REVENUE, by Bringing Back Businesses and Jobs to TAX-PAYING AMERICAN CITIZENS.

We'd really all be better off by just cutting through the BS and all the my team vs your team name calling nonsense and really focus on America and improving the future of the American people.

Once they're elected, our leaders should be working together for the good of the our country and our citizens by using combinations of the best ideas from both sides versus just trying to make the other side look bad so they lose the next election. – How's that been working?

It's not too late – But it will be soon – If our leaders don't start changing their ways.

January 9, 2014 at 10:52 am |

Bob

@ProtectAmericanJobs

PAJ,

I dont think people rejected Perot's ideas in 1992 – 19 percent of the public DID vote for him, including me, unprecidented for an independent. But I cant blame people for being concerned about the stability of a guy who drops out of the race, then gets back in. Sure, I do believe that there may have been threats against him (like he claimed) – but did these people force Perot to choose an obviously senile VP candidate (Stockdale) too? One or the other, but not both.

That said, I DID vote for him because I thought the message was that important, but I dont blame those who thought, for causes natural or sinister in orgin, that Perot was not stable – we were not completely out of the cold war back then, and an unstable president and senile VP could be catestrophic

January 9, 2014 at 11:58 am |

ProtectAmericanJobs

Good points Bob

January 9, 2014 at 1:50 pm |

Chris

Time to stop hitting the U.S. Taxpayers for their hard earned $$$ so it can be handed to able bodied people who have spent generations on welfare, public housing, food stamps, healthcare, and now iPhones w/minutes thrown in! Yes, extend unemployment for people who WORK, but for those who never seem to do any work other than go down to social services with all of their family just send 'em back out the door. We are tired of the handouts using our tax dollars. Now, if the government would put them to work somewhere then maybe help them for a few months to learn how to work hard.

The length you can claim unemployment has to do with how long you were working at the job. The long term unemployed (which is what the extension is about) are those who were employed LONG TERM at a single job and were let go for "lack of work" (not any wrongdoing on their part).

These aren't habitual users of public assistance. You have to have held a job for a significant amount of time to collect unemployment for a large number of weeks. Pretty much every state will not allow you to collect for more weeks then you worked. So people trying to collect 99 weeks of unemployment have worked nearly 2 years or more at the job they had prior to losing it.

In most cases, the increase in the cost of a product or service that uses minimum wage employees if 100% of that cost was put in the product is relatively small. For fast food places, you're talking about a 5-10% increase in the cost of food if you doubled the minimum wage.

But that would only happen if 100% came from the consumers buying the products. If some businesses tried to do that but others took a smaller profit margin in exchange for trying to take market share based on price differential (which is what SHOULD happen in a competitive market), then businesses would be forced to take less profit in order to protect their market position.

So it's possible that the level of inflation caused by the move might be relatively small as businesses maneuver to grab the additional demand caused by people at the low end of the income spectrum having more money to spend.

I realize that CNN is Liberal Propaganda machine for Democrats and Obama but any chance to get more balanced comments from Newt – have him move out of his RINO stage where the liberals just talk over his points?
Todays Crossfire topics Growing Middle Class, War on Poverty & Min wage is worst case of elite liberal talking poins that accomplish nothing – do none these people live in real world or have friends that have work there? Min Wage is Trojan Horse that does nothing. Does no one realize that worst employers like Walmart have half their force working part-time – they will just cut back hours to keep cost labor same. Most people now have work 2 jobs just get 40 hours in & go 3 if keep raising min wage!! You have first say Profitable Companies cannot hire part time until 80%+ of their "hourly" workforce is full time (don't get count corporate, managers,hdqtrs staff ) – Everyone is following this model to avoid having pay benefits & have moved beyond to lower exposure to unemployment, & pay increase. Stop giving Corporate Welfare to Walmart, Sams, Costco, Kmart, Hobby Lobby, and all those doing this – everyone living on Min Wage Jobs qualify for Welfare – actually they have better income on welfare. You are so far off on this you don't even have right questions let alone lame liberal answers CNN & Crossfire are pushing

The ONLY REAL FIX for our great country is to RAISE REVENUE, by Bringing Back Businesses and Jobs to TAX-PAYING AMERICAN CITIZENS.

The lack of businesses and good jobs in the USA is what's really going to rob us, our children, grand children and great grand children of the potential of a prosperous future.

It's all happened because, over the last 25-years, our government has allowed our country's industries to get sucked out to China, India, Mexico, etc and allowed illegal aliens and H-1B foreigners to come into our country and take away tax-paying Americans jobs and drive down prices and wages.

That's where our government leaders have to step up and put some sensible measures and incentives in place to keep jobs here in the USA or the real economy and infrastructure of the country we love will be destroyed along with the future of the American people.

I've been running a business where we haven't been able to our raise prices or wages for several years, because of what our leaders have allowed to happen to our country. Most small to medium size businesses are just struggling to survive.

We can't just raise the minimum wage unless we start improving the overall business environment and employment picture.

I run a business with 20 employees, all of whom earn well more than minimum wage, but it isn't so easy.

It's all happened because, over the last 25-years, our government has allowed our country's industries to get sucked out to China, India, Mexico, etc and allowed illegal aliens and H-1B foreigners to come into our country and take away tax-paying Americans jobs and drive down prices and wages.

It's hard enough to stay in business and make any profit nowadays and take care of our hard working conscientious employees. I believe that our cross-trained employees are our company's most important asset. We have every little turn over in our company. But if I advertise one job opening (all of which are well over the minimum wage), I'd have dozens upon dozens of qualified people and some over qualified people clamoring for the job and almost all of them would be happy to come in for less than they were making, just to have a steady job. But these people and myself are just struggling to keep up with our mortgages, kids student loans, health-care coverage............etc..............

The American people need our leaders to wake up and start putting some sensible measures in place to stem the tide or this is going to continue to have a devastating effect on the United States of America and the American people.

We'd really all be better off by just cutting through the all the my team vs your team name calling nonsense and really focus on America and improving the future of the American people.

Once they're elected, our leaders should be working together for the good of the our country and our citizens by using combinations of the best ideas from both sides versus just trying to make the other side look bad so they lose the next election. – How's that been working?

It's not too late – But it will be soon – If our leaders don't start changing their ways.

Wouldn't we be better off if Our Elected Leaders Started Working Together as AMERICANS for AMERICANS and AMERICA, instead of just bickering, stalling and posturing for the next election as democrats and republicans/tea-whatevers! The American People have had it with this unproductive BS! The way that both parties having been operating for years just stinks! Neither party has really been looking out for the best interests of the US Citizens who elect them and who they're supposed to represent.

The Citizens of the United States of America need our elected leaders from both parties to start working together to actually start trying to fix the real problems in our country like "out-sourcing", illegal immigration, the out of control costs of health care insurance and our reliance on foreign fuel.

Fix them together as Americans! – Because united we'll stand, but divided we'll

Regardless of what the Free-Traitors keep trying to sell us, we can see what's real. The American People need to just trust their own instincts, common sense and what they've seen actually going on all around them versus all of the nonsense that the free-traitors are still trying to sell us.

It has all happened way too fast – Our government leaders should have put measures in place to make it slower, so that it wouldn't devastate countries competing with other countries that don't play by the same rules or have pay scales that are even remotely close.

We need to add tariffs that are proportionate to the inequities in wages and regulations in the country where the goods were produced and or where we're importing them from. We could then use the money raised by these tariffs to help companies build state of the art manufacturing plants here in the USA, which would create more jobs here at home for US citizens, which would then in turn increase our income tax revenue.

The people with all of the excuses as to why we can't, shouldn't or aren't willing to manufacture products here in the US are the same people who have provided us with the thinking that's gotten us into this mess in the first place.

Over the past 15-20 years, I've seen too many of our customer's close manufacturing plants here in the USA and move those plants to different countries, decimating entire areas here in OUR COUNTRY. And I'm not alone. Returning jobs to American Citizens will provide income tax revenue to OUR Government versus our government having to pay unemployment benefits to those who would be jobless instead.

Our leaders better wake up and put some sensible measures in to stem the tide or this is going continue to have a devastating effect on America and the American citizens.

Bringing manufacturing back to the US not only gives jobs to the US citizens who would be working in those manufacturing facilities, but to the people that would be working in the businesses that would spring up all around them. This should also include the safe harvesting, production and distribution of our own natural energy here in the USA, rather than paying for fuel from countries where they hate us. Let's keep that money and those jobs here in the US.

The bottom line is that "Our Government" has to protect domestic industry and the jobs that those industries provide. If they do that, the rest will take care of itself.

It's obvious, isn't it. – But some people keep trying to feed us the Kool-Aid just to keep us distracted and polarized, so they can continue to sell us out.

Both sides are trying to get us to drink their brand of Kool-Aid, but it's just different flavors of the same thing and in the long run both brands are making us sick.

January 9, 2014 at 8:11 am |

ProtectAmericanJobs

Tariffs don't work, if we don't use them. We could have proportionally decreased and monitored them rather than just eliminating them altogether, which just allowed the floodgates to pop wide open.

Humm – Oh, Let me guess, Now we're going to hear the Old Tariffs = Socialism / Trade war BS – Sorry, they're right removing them has worked out so well for the American People and the Real American Economy.

The cold, hard truth is that the unholy alliance between Washington and Wall Street has sold out the American worker and exported our standard of living.

Over the last 25-years our government has allowed our country's industries to get sucked out to China, India, Mexico, etc and allowed illegal aliens and H-1B foreigners to come into our country and take away tax-paying Americans jobs and drive down prices and wages.

Driven by the insatiable greed of Wall Street profiteers and accelerated by the false promise of free trade, our manufacturing base has been chased out of this country and along with it the livelihood of millions of hard-working Americans.

It's fashionable these days among the politicians, pundits and so-called experts to claim that free trade is actually good for us. They say it enables us to buy cheaper goods made with cheap foreign labor and this, in turn, raises our standard of living.

The free traitors need to ask themselves a more fundamental question: How will Americans buy those goods when they don't even have a paycheck that covers their mortgage, much less the college tuition for their children?

We need to bring back Glass-Steagall and start standing up to the WTO.

If Ross Perot had been elected president in 1992, the American people and the American economy would have been much better off today!

The American People need Our Leaders to start remembering that they are elected by the Citizens of the United States of America to represent the interests of those citizens and the country itself. – They are NOT elected by or to present the Global Market Place, Lobbyist or Foreign citizens!

The bottom line is that “Our Government” has to protect domestic industry and the jobs that those industries provide. If they do that, the rest will take care of itself.

We may have to pay a bit more for products made here in the USA by US citizens, but at least we'll still have jobs and a future for our children.

January 9, 2014 at 8:13 am |

ProtectAmericanJobs

On the US Department of Commerce's US Census Bureau website there's a graphic showing how our trade imbalance has gotten progressively worse over the entire period from 1989 to the present and how it's really accelerated at an increasingly greater rate each year since 1999.

We can thank "our leaders" from both sides and the WTO for that.

See for yourself: www(dot)census(dot)gov(slash)foreign-trade(slash)balance(slash)c0004(dot)html

Check it out and figure it out for yourself.

If these "free trade" agreements were so good us, why did our trade deficit keep getting larger and larger during this span of time.

Increasingly way more money going out of our country every year versus coming in every year.

It's not rocket science.

January 9, 2014 at 8:42 am |

ProtectAmericanJobs

If Ross Perot had been elected president in 1992, the American people and the real American economy would have been much better off today! I and many other people, who were able to see through all of the left vs right BS, did vote for Perot, because he was straight forward and just used common sense. He cared about his country and the American people.

January 9, 2014 at 10:55 am |

Kurt

"Does no one realize that worst employers like Walmart have half their force working part-time – they will just cut back hours to keep cost labor same. Most people now have work 2 jobs just get 40 hours in & go 3 if keep raising min wage!!"

Ummm... math isn't your friend is it? If their hours get cut so they have to work more jobs, they're still going to work LESS HOURS. 2 jobs at 8 bucks an hour 20 hours a week each = 320 a week. 3 jobs at 10 bucks an hour 11 hours a week each = 330 a week. 10 more dollars for 7 less hours working (nearly a full work day). How is that a negative for the minimum wage worker?

"everyone living on Min Wage Jobs qualify for Welfare – actually they have better income on welfare. "

Not true. The qualifications for TANF and other programs defined as "welfare" are often dependent upon children. While many do qualify, minimum wage workers who don't have kids almost never do. But disregarding that, raising minimum wage helps address that issue. If the minimum wage go up, less minimum wage workers will be collecting from federal entitlement programs because they'll be making more from their jobs.

A large portion of the minimum wage earners are young adults or teens, and typically do not NEED every penny. There are undoubtedly many people that would benefit from a federally mandated minimum wage increase, but this increase should be targeted at people who will benefit the most. Set increased wages for full-time workers only (maybe a percentage increase for part-time as well). A blanket approach to this issue is too inefficient, increase wages of the people who truly need it – the full-time minimum wage earners.

The minimum wage was never intended to be a living wage – it is a starting point for teenagers entering the workforce.
The cycle of poverty will only be broken when individuals start valuing education and vocational training and stop having children that they cannot afford to feed, clothe and house. We have generations of individuals in this country who have no problem finding their way to the Welfare Office but somehow can't be bothered to show up for a job. Why is this allowed to continue and why should those of us who came from very modest means, stayed in school (which we worked weekend jobs to pay for) and worked 14-hr-days for decades be demonized and made to pay punitive taxes? Has no one on Capitol Hill ever heard the fable of the Ant & the Grasshopper? Safety nets were designed to help the helpless, not the clueless...

The only way to achieve "income equality" is for everyone to be making the same amount of money otherwise there will always be INCOME INEQUALITY. This will never happen although it will give democrats / liberals something to complain about literally forever because it will never happen.

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